U.S. Should Help Restore Democracy to Venezuela, Analyst Says

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WASHINGTON, May 3,
2002-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez survived last month's
popular uprising, but democracy in that troubled country may not be
so lucky unless the Bush administration takes an active role in
promoting it, a new Heritage Foundation paper says.

That's because Chavez hasn't renounced the radical agenda that
caused the revolt in the first place-handing over the education
system to Cubans, thwarting the press, misusing the military and
taking steps that have nearly strangled Venezuela's struggling
economy-says Latin America Policy Analyst Stephen Johnson.

Before Chavez, Venezuela and the United States enjoyed a
friendly and mutually beneficial relationship, he says. Venezuela
was a reliable trade partner and the supplier of up to 13 percent
of U.S. oil imports. Moreover, the nation was a democratic ally in
a region where democracy has struggled to gain a foothold.

All that changed in 1998, when voters, disillusioned with
corruption and economic failure, elected Chavez, a cashiered army
officer. He moved quickly to position Venezuela as a counter-weight
to American influence in the region-aligning himself with pariah
states such as Libya, Iraq and Cuba, assisting Marxist rebels in
Colombia, and encouraging the efforts of dissidents in other
neighboring states.

Chavez also re-engineered the constitution to ensure himself a
long stay in office, Johnson says. He tried to bust the nation's
largest union, but he backed down in the face of a nationwide
strike. And he brought in Cubans to help develop a new school
curricula, one that prompted parents to protest that their children
were being "indoctrinated with foreign ideology."

By the end of 2001, Chavez had replaced 40 cabinet members,
attempted to silence the media and to hide Peru's fugitive
spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos, and embarrassed the largely
Catholic nation with flip remarks about Pope John Paul II after a
Vatican meeting. He also saw his popularity rating fall from 76
percent in 1999 to 29 percent. To help restore democracy to
Venezuela, the Bush administration should work with Venezuelan
politicians and civic leaders to promote democratic institutions
and free-market reforms, Johnson says.

It can, for example, encourage international watchdog
organizations to assess human rights, civil liberties, press
freedoms and labor rights in Venezuela. It can press for
much-needed reforms, from rooting out corruption to reducing state
control of the economy. And it can improve commercial relations
with democracies that Chavez has courted as potential opponents of
free trade.

"For a long time, we've done little, hoping to avoid a fight
with Chavez," Johnson says. "But it's time for us to let the
Venezuelan people know that we stand with them-and to help those
who are trying to build a free, open and democratic society."